Brown University Student Group Invites HRIC Executive Director
On April 23, HRIC Executive Director Zhou Fengsuo spoke to a packed room at Brown University. Director Zhou was invited by the Brown Political Union as a guest speaker, to share his own experiences as a Tiananmen student leader and discuss the political trajectory of the CCP’s regime from 1989 to the present day. The event was attended by more than 50 people, mostly students, despite upcoming final exams. Although the event ran from 8-9:30pm, Director Zhou stayed until 10:30 to speak with students who lined up to talk to him.
In discussing his experiences in 1989, Director Zhou specifically described the process of gaining courage by taking small steps at critical moments, encouraged by bystanders and reporters. He explained that his sense of duty to his country and to his fellow protestors, further developed through the events at Tiananmen, has stayed strong up through the present. Many of the students who attended are the children of protestors from 1989, who were moved by Director Zhou’s first-person account of the events, as well as the artifacts he brought, items from the protests themselves that most had never seen before. Several expressed interest in visiting the June Fourth Memorial Museum in Manhattan.
One attendee, Lee McDaniel, was just beginning his student activism at Brown when the protests at Tiananmen began in 1989. His first motion at that time was to support the student protestors on Tiananmen Square, and his interest in Chinese human rights issues has persisted ever since. For Director Zhou and Mr. McDaniel, meeting after 35 years felt like a reunion, and an emotional moment.
Director Zhou also talked about his work with Human Rights in China advocating for political prisoners. These prisoners of conscience have faced punishment from the Chinese authorities because they are a vital voice for free and democratic China, and they create hope for change. This international advocacy helps the situation of the political prisoners by increasing the pressure about their cases, and gives them a sense of solidarity even though the CCP is trying to isolate them and reduce their influence. He emphasized that this area is something that students and the international community can make a real difference on from outside of China.
One of the students asked about the retaliation that some of the White Paper Movement protesters experienced and the decline of general awareness toward the protests. Director Zhou explained that this phenomenon is very similar to what the Tiananmen generation experienced, and what the Hong Kong protestors have experienced since 2019. All of these groups sacrificed themselves for the sake of the public; but even if the results aren’t seen immediately, it’s never futile, and these efforts are never in vain. Furthermore, we can do more to support those who face retaliation because of their participation in the protests.